by Ali Novak
By the time summer rolled around, I wasn’t so excited anymore. New York was calling out to me and I wanted to answer, but at the same time, the thought of leaving was terrifying. My mom told me the flutters I felt were normal. Leaving home for the first time was a big step, and it was good to be nervous. But what I felt inside my stomach didn’t feel like butterflies. It was more like killer bees.
Before I could make sense of anything, the cancer came back.
And just like that, the bees were gone. I knew I couldn’t leave while Cara was undergoing treatment, so I decided to defer for a semester. It was different for Drew. Minneapolis was only an hour and a half drive from Rochester, so he could come home on the weekends to visit Cara whenever he wanted. I would be states away, completely and utterly alone. I wasn’t bitter about having to put off school, but part of me wished I’d followed Drew’s example and applied to a university close to home.
A drop of sweat started to trickle down my forehead. “That’s it,” I said and sat up.
I needed to stop feeling sorry for myself. Yes, it was disappointing that I wasn’t going off to school like my brother, and yeah, I hadn’t been able to get the perfect birthday present for my sister, but there was no way I could deal with this discomfort any longer. Pulling my hair onto the top of my head in a bird’s-nest fashion, I decided to do something about our room.
“I’m going down to the front desk to complain. Don’t have a heatstroke while I’m gone.”
“You’re going down like that?” Drew questioned me.
I glanced in the mirror. Okay, so I looked like hell with my sweaty bangs plastered to the side of my face, but I was way past caring. “Yes, I am, so shut up. It’s not like I’m going to run into anyone important.”
“Just saying,” Drew said. His gaze dove back down to his book, and I watched for a moment as his eyes tore across the page. Suddenly he gasped at something unexpected. “No way,” he whispered to himself.
Rolling my eyes, I left my brother to his reading and headed out of the room.
• • •
“What do you mean, there are no more rooms left?” I complained to the concierge. He’d already informed me that the hotel maintenance man had left for the night, so no one could fix the AC.
“Sorry, miss, but everything is booked up.” The man’s eyes shifted around the lobby as he answered my question, almost as if he was expecting something bad to happen. I followed his gaze and noticed quite a few girls waiting around.
I placed both my hands flat on the counter. “Well, is there a manager I can talk to? I didn’t pay to melt to death.”
But the man wasn’t listening. His face went pale and he stared past me. “Oh crap…”
“Oh my God!” someone squealed. “They’re really here!”
The muscles in my shoulders went rigid, and I grabbed the edge of the counter with a grip tight enough to turn the tips of my fingers white. I’d heard a sufficient number of screaming girls for one day, and I sucked in a deep breath before turning around. Just as I was about to tell off whatever idiot had screamed, all of the girls lingering around the lobby rushed to the front doors.
“It’s the Heartbreakers!”
Four boys stepped into the lobby, bodyguards swarming around them on both sides. Outside, police were manning the door so a stampede wouldn’t rush into the hotel. I caught a glimpse of familiar wavy hair and my stomach dropped.
“You have got to be shitting me.”
This wasn’t seriously happening, was it? I mean, how was it even possible to run into the same celebrity so many times in one day? These kinds of things happened in movies, not real life.
“Ladies, ladies,” the concerned concierge called out. “Please give our guests some room.” His request went unnoticed.
“Xander, I love you!”
“Alec, marry me!”
“JJ, over here!”
“Oh my God, Oliver!”
The band paused to greet a few of their fans, and as I looked on, I decided that this would go down as one of my craziest days ever. Cara was never going to believe me when I told her. I continued to watch the Heartbreakers until Oliver glanced at the counter where I was standing. I quickly spun around before he spotted me.
I knew it was irrational, but I almost felt as if he’d lied to me by not telling me who he was. Or maybe I just felt stupid for not knowing. Either way, it would be awkward to talk to him again.
After a minute of negotiation with the desk clerk, I managed to get our room for free, but it wasn’t much of a comfort. Just thinking about spending a whole night feeling hot and sticky made me want to yank my hair out. But there was nothing else I could do, so I headed for the elevator.
“Stupid boy band,” I grumbled as I stepped inside and hit the button for the fifth floor. It was childish, but it helped to have someone to be angry with.
“Hold the door!” Glancing up, I spotted a bodyguard pointing at me. The Heartbreakers were being led across the lobby, their guards trying to hold back the growing group of girls. I jabbed the “door close” button multiple times, hoping I could escape, but no such luck. The group slipped into the elevator, the doors almost shutting on the last guy.
“Thanks so much,” the boy with glasses said. “That would have been a nightmare.”
“I didn’t know appreciating your fans was such a chore.” The words tumbled out of my mouth before my mind even registered what I had said.
Oliver’s head popped up at the sound of my voice. He stared at me for a moment before breaking out into a huge grin. “Stella!”
He remembers me! My heart leaped, but for some reason I couldn’t bring myself to respond, and I watched as the smile slipped off his face.
Nobody seemed to hear Oliver’s comment, and the boy with glasses readjusted his frames as he tried to get a better look at me. “Say what?” he asked.
“What do you mean, not appreciating our fans?” The boy with the big muscles crossed his arms in an intimidating sort of way, and the tattoo around his bicep stretched. “We had an autograph signing today.”
“Yeah, I know that,” I snapped. “I waited for three hours only to get right to the front of the line and watch you all leave.”
“Oh, an unhappy fan?” he asked. His expression did a one-eighty as a grin spread across his face.
“We can definitely fix that,” Glasses Boy added. He pulled a Sharpie out of his pocket. “Do you have a camera?”
I let out an unattractive snort. “You think I’m a fan?” Pausing, I shot him a glare. “Not a chance in the world.”
The boys glanced at each other, not sure how to respond. “I think she might be crazy,” Muscles whispered to the boy with the perfect hair, who still had a pair of headphones draped around his neck. He had yet to speak, and he only gave his friend a quick nod of agreement.
“The only thing that’s crazy is that people actually listen to your music.” I could feel my pulse fluttering with each word I spoke. “I was at the signing today—which was torture, considering I was forced to listen to the same CD until my ears bled—for one reason only: to get my sister an autograph. And if she weren’t my sister, I’d probably disown her for listening to crap.”
The band stared at me, mouths gaping.
“Anything else?” Glasses asked.
“Yeah,” I added with one final burst of irritation. “You guys suck.”
The elevator stopped and the door slid open.
“I think I kind of like this girl. She’s got sass,” Muscles said with a smirk. “Can we keep her?”
“Screw off,” I told him, and then, without looking at Oliver, I shoved past the Heartbreakers onto the fifth floor.
Order Ali Novak’s first book
in The Heartbreak Chronicles
The Heartbreakers
On sale now
About the Author<
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Ali Novak is a Wisconsin native and a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s creative writing program. She started writing her debut novel My Life with the Walter Boys when she was only fifteen. Since then, her work has received more than one hundred million hits online. When she isn’t writing, Ali enjoys Netflix marathons, traveling with her husband Jared, and reading any type of fantasy novel she can get her hands on. You can follow her on Wattpad, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @fallzswimmer.
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